1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling progress of a video game by displaying a player character on an image display screen of an image display apparatus, and by controlling an action of the characters displayed on the image display screen in response to operation(s) by a player.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, various kinds of so-called role playing games (RPG; that is, a game in which a player plays a role of a character in a world of the game to accomplish a predetermined object while enjoying a process that the character grows through various experiences) have been provided.
In such a RPG, generally, a player character acting in response to operations by the player wins a battle against an enemy character thwarting accomplishment of a predetermined object in the RPG, by which various benefits such as an experiential value are supplied to the player character.
In a video game such as a RPG, an attack against an enemy character in a battle is generally executed by means of a direct attack in which a weapon such as a sword part of magic is used or an indirect attack in which an object item unrelated to the player character and the enemy character is used.
In such an attack, heretofore, there is proposed a system in which it is determined whether or not an attack against an enemy character can be executed in view of movement speed of the player character and/or a distance between the player character and the enemy character.
Further, a video game in which an operation of a player is reflected in detail, a damage by an attack to an enemy character is directed and this makes reality or realism to be heightened to improve interest of the player in playing the video game has been proposed (for example, see Japanese Patent No. 3,442,184).
However, the attack against the enemy character in the conventional video game is often intended to merely apply a damage to an enemy character by means of an attack and to get the enemy character into a battle impossible state. For this reason, there has been a problem that it is hard to include a strategic factor into the attack, whereby it is hard to heighten interest of the player in playing the video game.